ST. PAUL, Minn. — Lane Johnson has been catching some heat on Twitter this week — from his own fans.

Johnson is not just an offensive line standout for the Philadelphia Eagles but also helped to spark the dog mask movement that is overwhelming the city. He was among the first players to wear the masks that symbolize the team’s underdog status and swiftly had T-shirts emblazoned with canine images printed and sold through the internet, with the proceeds going to charity.

The volume of shirt orders as Super Bowl fever sweeps the City of Brotherly Love has created a bit of a backlog, and Johnson has found himself in the firing line.

“We have had 6,000 orders and I just have my manager and two people in the basement making them,” Johnson laughed. “I have been getting bashed on Twitter so I just need people to know that they will get their shirts and if not they will personally get their money back.”

If the Eagles win on Sunday, Johnson will probably have earned his way out of the doghouse but levity aside, the curious case of the masks does seem to have had a tangible effect on Doug Pederson’s team.

Eagles fans have bought into the idea, with both their spirit and their wallets. And the players have fed off their energy.

“The fans have seen what we have been through all year,” linebacker Nigel Bradham said. “It seemed like every week someone was picking us to lose.”

The players love the images of dogged (sorry) spirit conjured by the masks, but in many cases even they have not been able to get their hands on one.

The most established online vendor of creepy dog masks is a Chinese distributor who ran out of their entire supply, ordered more to be manufactured, then saw all those snapped up too.

“I don’t have one but I do rock it sometimes,” defensive end Brandon Graham said. “If one of my teammates throws theirs off I will put it on but I couldn’t find one personally. But it goes with our team. The chip just got bigger on that shoulder and we wanted to prove to people that we belong.”

To their credit, the Eagles organization also got on board. For the victory over the Vikings, the big screen operator at Lincoln Financial Field was not shy to post dog images up whenever a boost in crowd energy was needed. Fans were permitted to bring masks into the stadium and wear them all game long, as long as they temporarily removed them before going through security.

The Eagles were dismissed as Super Bowl contenders the moment quarterback Carson Wentz suffered his season ending ACL and LCL injury during week 14 against the Los Angeles Rams. However, Nick Foles has proven to be a worthy deputy and after seeing off the sixth-seeded Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia blew away the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship game.

For each of those home victories, the Las Vegas oddsmakers had them as underdogs.

“I can understand people having us as underdogs ever since Carson went down, when Aaron Rodgers goes down people think Green Bay won’t win any more games,” Johnson added. “It is a popular thought but we had the belief all along that we’d be fine. It’s a disrespect to the other 21 guys playing the game that they make it just about one guy getting injured.”